The "safe at home" game. Training comprehensive prevention skills in latchkey children.
A short card game can lock in home-safety skills for latchkey kids for a full year.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team built a card-and-board game called "Safe at Home." Eight latchkey kids played it after school.
Each 30-minute session gave the kids a chance to practice three skills: what to do with strangers, how to handle small emergencies, and how to pick safe snacks.
The game used the same four steps you already know: explain, show, practice, and give feedback.
What they found
After 16 sessions every child scored near-perfect on safety checks.
One year later most kids still passed the checks. A quick two-hour review fixed the few slips.
How this fits with other research
Petit-Frere et al. (2021) took the same BST idea and aimed it at poison safety for autistic 6- to 8-year-olds. They added least-to-most prompts and still got strong results.
Cashon et al. (2013) moved the stranger-safety module to adults with mild ID. They kept the BST core but added real-life street practice.
Christopher et al. (1991) swapped the safety theme for social skills and used the Sorry board game. Five adults in a group home learned interaction moves with no extra rewards.
Together these studies show BST travels: it works across ages, diagnoses, and skills when you keep the four-step heart and tweak the context.
Why it matters
You can turn any dull safety lesson into a fast card game. Write the steps on cards, add points, and let the learner rehearse.
The 1984 kids kept the skill for a year, so one game series can give long coverage.
Try it Monday: pick one home hazard, build ten game cards, and run a five-minute round. You just practiced BST without calling it therapy.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Eight children who were occasionally left without parental supervision received training in the following areas: (1) how to react to the emergencies of a fire, a cut hand, and a tornado; (2) how to respond to strangers who come to the door or call on the telephone; and (3) how to select nutritious, safe snacks and optimal after-school activities. The subjects played the "Safe at Home" game, which allowed them first to discriminate correct from incorrect responses portrayed on cards; the cards were then phased out as the children progressed from recognition to recall learning. The subjects demonstrated acceptable but not optimal baseline levels of selecting snacks and after-school activities, and showed dangerously inadequate responses to emergencies and strangers. Following sixteen training sessions, children responded to all seven of the training areas at near-optimal levels. One year after training had ceased, the five children who could be contacted continued to show optimal responses to selecting snacks and after-school activities, and acceptable but not optimal responses to encountering strangers. Responses to emergencies were less acceptable but still superior to baseline responding. After less than two hours of review training, children demonstrated near-optimal responding on all seven training areas. The cost effectiveness of this treatment program for high-risk children is described.
Behavior modification, 1984 · doi:10.1177/01454455840084002